After being spurned by his niece for a ride to the liquor store, a Boynton Beach man decided he should burn something: his house, according to authorities.

On Dec. 14, Clemons — who had already been drinking — asked his niece for a ride to the liquor store, according to a report from the agency. She told investigators she told him “No” and they got into an argument. To avoid further confrontation, the woman said she left the house.

Not long afterward, Clemons’ brother arrived at the house. He told investigators Clemons was standing out on the porch mumbling to himself about being “tired of it all,” according to the report.

His brother started making dinner and went out to see if Clemons was OK. Then, he saw a huge flame burning at the northeast corner of the house.
Clemons’ brother was able to extinguish the fire with a hose. Officials said the structural damage was minimal, but a garbage container and an all-terrain vehicle were slightly damaged.

Boynton Beach fire officials later found Clemons walking down the street with a large burn on his forearm.

Investigators determined Clemons poured gasoline against the wall outside and on the all-terrain vehicle and lit the fire while his brother was inside.

Clemons had left the hospital before Boynton Beach police were able to detain him.

He is charged with arson and is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail without bail.

A 25-year old man started following his ex-girlfriend in a vehicle Tuesday morning and tried to rob her when she pulled into the sheriff’s office parking lot, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

Eugene Williams began following his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend in his vehicle around 10:45 a.m., and the woman drove into the sheriff’s office parking lot for help, deputies said.

Williams blocked her before she could exit the vehicle, pushing and hitting the vehicle and demanding money from the woman, according to a release.

Deputies came out into the parking lot and heard the suspect demanding money from the victim. They arrested Williams, who tried to resist, deputies said.

Williams was charged with attempted robbery and taken to the Manatee County jail.

A woman accused of tossing chocolate milk on her live-in boyfriend did not end up in the land of milk and honey.

Vines’ 52-year-old boyfriend told Martin County Sheriff’s deputies that Vines woke from a nap and started screaming at him.Instead, Linda Vines, 41, was arrested and thrown in the Martin County jail after the Jan. 30 incident, records state.

“She threw her glass of chocolate milk at him and punched him repeatedly in the face,” a report states.

He said Vines begged him to stop calling the authorities, saying she’d blame him for a crack pipe she hid in the residence.

He said she took off through the back door after the incident that didn’t exemplify the milk of human kindness.

Investigators saw chocolate milk, which is milk flavored with chocolate, on the boyfriend’s head and shorts. It also was spilled on his couch, floor and coffee table.

Records did not indicate whether anyone cried over the spilled milk. It also wasn’t specified whether the situation was milked for more than it was worth.

Deputies arrested Vines, of the 4400 block of Southeast Hamilton Lane in Stuart, on a battery charge.

A woman who was brutally attacked by her husband in front of their children early Thursday morning died overnight, according to Hillsborough County sheriff’s officials.

Michelle Dukes, 34, was airlifted in critical condition to Tampa General Hospital from her street in Riverview on Thursday morning after her husband, Keith Dukes, 48, allegedly slit her throat and shot her multiple times in the upper body, the sheriff’s office said. He now faces a charge of second-degree murder.

After the incident Thursday morning, Hillsborough deputies found Keith Dukes near the family’s home, standing in the Alafia River. He told them he did it because his wife tried to take their daughters away.

“My life is over,” Keith Dukes told deputies as they apprehended him, according to a probable cause affidavit. “I wish you could have just killed me. Just take me to jail.” According to the affidavit, he had been separated from his wife for about a year.

The couple’s daughters, ages 7, 13 and 14, were waiting in the car for a ride to school when the violence broke out. Keith Dukes first stabbed or cut his wife in the throat inside their home at 8818 Van Fleet Road, a quiet suburban street with no sidewalks and ranch homes. She ran from the house screaming for help and her daughters, who saw her from the car, ran with her, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said at a news conference Thursday morning.

A passing Waste Management truck driver saw the family running toward him, begging for help, so he called 911. Michelle Dukes was covered in blood.

“I saw a cut going from one side of her neck to the other,” the driver, Jason Alvarez, said.

A neighbor who had come outside after he heard commotion gave the dispatcher the address. In the meantime, the family took refuge in another neighbor’s home.

A short time later, Alvarez heard a gunshot. Keith Dukes had broken into the neighbor’s home where his wife and children were hiding. He fired three shots, according to the affidavit, before a witness wrestled the gun from him.

The children were uninjured, Gee said, but surely traumatized. They were staying with a family member Thursday night.

A woman accused of pulling her child’s father’s dreadlocks and hitting him with a tricycle wound up behind bars in what could be called a hairy situation, an affidavit states.

Josaphat said the child’s father, identified by police as the victim, said that since she was not being intimate with him, he was “getting it” elsewhere.Clinda Josaphat, 20, told Fort Pierce police Jan. 19 she was doing her child’s father’s hair while he was rapping.

Josaphat said she told him she could not have sex on doctor’s orders. She said he picked her up and threw her on a trashcan.

The victim said Josaphat was doing his hair as they talked about their unborn child. He said the altercation started when he said he didn’t want to be in her life but did want to be in his child’s life.

Josaphat “kept twisting his dreads tighter and tighter,” eventually hitting him with a tricycle.

A witness said Josaphat “was all over (the victim) pulling his dreads and biting him.” The witness said Josaphat tried to hit him with a tricycle and a rake.

The victim had welts on his head from the hair pulling and a bite mark on the back.

Josaphat, of the 600 block of North 23rd Street in Fort Pierce, was arrested on a battery charge.